


Just a Little Confused

by aces



Category: NCIS
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-02
Updated: 2011-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-15 08:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is just…a little confused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Little Confused

**Author's Note:**

> Spoils the sixth season episode "Love and War," and general spoilers for the whole show.  
> From the prompt Anthony DiNozzo/Timothy McGee, Tony was pretending to be a woman to chat Tim up online. He wasn't completely honest when he told Ziva it was a prank (Tony is gay/bi/trans). I twisted the prompt slightly, in that Tony didn’t know he wasn’t being completely honest. Including to himself. Thanks to kindkit for offering fantastic advice on how to improve this; any mistakes or bad writing that remain are all mine.

“I can’t believe Ziva told you,” Tony complained—for the dozenth time that day, he had to admit, but, jeez, she told and it cost him money and being nice to the probie, and when the hell did McGeek get good enough to pull one over on _him_?

“Tony,” McGee sighed, “you’re kinda missing the point.”

“What? There’s a point? Other than you lied to me?” It was late. It was the end of the week, they’d just wrapped up a case, everyone else had gone home. Most of the lights were off in the office, the building was hushed the way it only got after midnight on a Saturday. Tony was _tired_. Not that he would ever admit that to anyone on the team— _anyone_. He had a sneaking suspicion he was getting old. He didn’t like it.

“You lied to me first, remember?”

“Oh yeah.” Tony sat back in his chair, pushing away from his desk He glared over at McGee, who was still staring intently at his own screen, fingers tapping in their usual rhythm. “Still, probie, that doesn’t mean you lie _back_. I’ll never forgive Ziva.”

McGee glanced askance at Tony, then rolled his eyes and reached out to turn off his monitor. He picked up his backpack and walked around his desk to stand in front of Tony’s.

“The point, Tony,” McGee told him patiently, “is that if you really wanted to have sex with me, you should have just said, instead of pulling my proverbial pigtails.”

“What?” Tony stared up at the other agent blankly. He’d heard McGee speak, he’d seen his lips move and everything, but the words were _not_ sinking in. “What?” he repeated and dug a finger into his ear.

“You heard me,” Tim sighed and started walking away.

“I’m not gay!” Tony jumped up and yelled after him, and he almost gave himself a slap upside the head for calling that out so loudly. After midnight on a Saturday. It was okay. Wait—no, it was still okay; the security cameras didn’t have sound.

Tony was really, _really_ tired.

“I never said you were,” McGee yelled back from the elevator. It dinged shut behind him.

Tony looked around the empty floor. “I’m not gay,” he repeated quietly, but suddenly he felt awfully…unsettled.

*

He continued to feel unsettled, leading to a less-than-restful night’s sleep, and he didn’t understand _why_ he was so unsettled. It was standard fare, wasn’t it? Mock your co-workers, drop the occasional comment to suggest they prefer those of the same gender instead of the opposite, and move on in the conversation. Tony did it all the time. McGee not so much, sure, but then, McGee sometimes had remarkably little sense of humor, but it was still just a blow-off comment.

Right?

Tony spent that Sunday thinking about Amanda Reed. She had looked a helluva lot more girl-like than McGee ever did, but she still wasn’t entirely…feminine. Whatever that meant. It wasn’t like Ziva was feminine either, but she was very definitely a woman.

Oh, well, that certainly cleared everything up.

The point was, Anthony DiNozzo, charmer of women everywhere, had found Amanda Reed attractive. And she had still technically been a ‘he’ at the time. Tony had been embarrassed, with Kate teasing him mercilessly about tonguing a guy, but it had been more than embarrassment too, it had been…confusion. Because he had still been attracted to him—her, even after finding out she had a dick. Had been attracted to her in a different way. And that reaction, _that_ had weirded him out about the encounter more than anything else.

And there’d been…other things. Other people. Over the years. Now that he thought about it. But it had meant nothing, it had _always_ meant nothing.

And what about McGee anyway?

The thing was, he’d _liked_ flirting with McGiggle. Okay, yeah, he’d been bored that night, but he’d been thinking about doing something like that for a while now—seriously, how else could he have come up with such a perfectly enticing female profile and so quickly too? After listening to McDnD for so many hours between stakeouts and long days at work, he had figured out exactly which attributes to pick for Claire the computer programmer.

Actually, wait, admitting that it had been _planned_ made him sound even gayer. And he wasn’t. It had been for a laugh. Because he was bored on a weekend.

That didn’t explain why, the longer he’d spent chatting with McGoogle online, the more he’d looked forward to their next IM session. It didn’t explain the tightening in his pants, or of his chest, the way he’d felt his skin flush and his heart rate increase, all at the thought of the next chance he’d get to spend with Tim, even if it was online. All physical tells Anthony DiNozzo knew very, very well, even if he’d tried to ignore them all weekend, even if he’d on occasion noticed them before last weekend. And ignoring had just become increasingly harder (oh yeah, haha, _very funny_ ) to do.

It had been _fun_. And who else, Tony asked himself very seriously that Sunday, who else would think that pretending to be a hot geeky chick in order to flirt with one of his co-workers (and, he had to admit to himself—he was admitting an awful lot to himself this weekend—one of his friends) would be fun?

“Oh crap,” Tony announced to his apartment, “maybe I _am_ gay.”

*

He didn’t know what to do. So he went to Ducky, first thing Monday morning. He got to the morgue so early Ducky and Jimmy weren’t even in yet, and he waited, fidgeting.

“Anthony!” Ducky always sounded so pleasantly surprised whenever anybody visited him down in the morgue; it usually made Tony feel welcome, but this morning he was too busy freaking out. And yes, he was definitely freaking out; his palms were sweaty, he hadn’t felt this breathless since that run a couple weeks ago in pursuit of a perp ( _note to self: work out more_ ), and he had an unholy dread of running into Timothy—or Ziva—or, god, _Gibbs_. “What a pleasant surprise. Or—I hope it is? I haven’t heard anything about any bodies being discovered this morning; what are you doing down here?”

“I, uh…” Now that Tony was here, he couldn’t actually bring himself to say anything. He was being an idiot, right? He liked _women_. Obviously. This was just some weird trick his brain had been playing on him over the weekend. So why couldn’t he bring himself to go upstairs and join the team? Goof off with McGee and Ziva like usual? “Um. Hi, Ducky.”

“Yes, hello, Tony,” Ducky repeated patiently. He stood waiting, looking at the agent. Tony stared down at him, desperate. He couldn’t open his mouth now. He couldn’t actually _feel_ his mouth now. This was not his finest hour. “Is there something that you need?”

“Oh, crap.” Tony turned around and began pacing. “I wanted to get your advice on something, Ducky, but now I can’t…”

“Can’t what?”

“… _Damn_ it.” Tony sprawled into Ducky’s chair at the table he used for his computer. “I am too old to have this kind of identity crisis.”

“Tony?” Ducky’s voice sharpened with concern, and he started quickly toward the younger man. “My dear boy, what is the matter with you?”

DiNozzo started laughing. “That,” he said, looking up to grin (possibly just the tiniest bit hysterically) at the medical examiner, “that is a very good question.”

“Anthony, I can’t possibly help if I don’t know what’s wrong.” Ducky perched on the edge of the table next to Tony. “Is it physical, psychological, or something else entirely?”

Tony put his head in his hands. He could feel Ducky’s worried gaze zeroing in on the back of his neck, and that really didn’t make him feel like looking up. So he said to the table, “I think I might be gay.”

Ducky sputtered for a moment, and then he started laughing. Tony lifted his head to glare at him. _Not_ the reaction he had been looking for from the older man. He wasn’t exactly sure what reaction he’d been expecting—a story about sixteenth-century English court records regarding sodomy was possibly the best he’d been hoping for, but laughter had never been on the books.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Ducky held up his hands in what he probably thought was a placating gesture. Tony continued to glare. “It’s just rather ridiculous, don’t you think? You love women. Or, well, you love them in your own particular fashion. You love flirting with them and having them flirt with you. Really, Tony, do try to think these things through.”

“I pretended to be a woman online! So I could flirt with McGee!”

“Oh yes, I heard about that,” Ducky sounded thoughtful. “Did you enjoy it?”

Tony looked down at the table again. He could feel himself blushing, which was just embarrassing. “Yeah,” he muttered.

“Did he enjoy it?”

“Uh, yeah,” Tony found himself a little insulted. “If there is one thing I know how to do well, Ducky, it’s how to flirt. Doesn’t matter what the context is, whether I’m in person or not, I _know_ how to _flirt_.”

“There you are then.” Ducky squeezed his shoulder in what he no doubt considered a comforting manner, even though Tony’s stomach was still doing queasy flipflops at the thought of going upstairs and facing the team. “You’re not gay, Tony. You might just be…a little flexible.”

Flexible? Tony stared up at the older man in disbelief but had no time to open his mouth and ask what the hell he meant by that exactly.

“Ducky?” McGee’s voice spoke out of nowhere, causing Tony to jump and the chair he was in to slide backwards so that he ended up sprawling on his ass on the cold, hard concrete floor. Mostly, though, he was impressed he hadn’t squeaked like a complete girl and given himself away on the intercom. “Ducky, have you seen Tony around anywhere? Gibbs is getting _pissed_.”

Ducky stared down at DiNozzo, who was frantically waving his arms around and mouthing things like _I’m not here!_ and _You never saw me!_ “I haven’t seen him this morning, Timothy,” Ducky spoke toward the phone, though he never took his eyes off Tony on the floor. Tony couldn’t really interpret the look on Ducky’s face, but he thought part of it might be Ducky fearing for his sanity. Which, really, wasn't that surprising. “Why don’t you check your email and voicemail? Perhaps he’s running late.”

An audible sigh. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Ducky.” There was a click as Tim hung up at his end.

Tony sagged on the ground. “Thank you,” he said.

“I think,” Ducky sounded contemplative, “you should talk to Abigail.”

“Abby?” DiNozzo looked up at that. “Why Abby?”

Ducky held out a hand to help the younger man up. “Who else?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “Gibbs?”

Tony blanched. “Abby it is.”

*

“Tony!” Abby looked up from one of her large, noisy forensic machines, beaming. “I would come hug you but I’m waiting for Major Mass Spec to finally give up my sample. What brings you down here? I didn’t think there was anything on the books for today.”

“There isn’t, so far as I know,” Tony wandered around the lab, not really seeing anything he looked at.

“Oh yeah,” Abby looked up again, “McGee was looking for you. Shouldn’t you go upstairs, let everybody know you’re here?”

Queasy flipflops again. It was a good thing he hadn’t had any breakfast this morning. “Nah,” he said, “not yet.”

“Gibbs is going to kill you,” she sounded conversational.

Tony shrugged one shoulder. “When isn’t he?” he said, rather bravely; this was _Gibbs_ after all, but he could only face one crisis at a time, and the one he was facing right this instant was a little more pressing.

“Wow,” Abby finally seemed to have caught on to his mood. She was staring at him. “What has gotten into you? Are you feeling okay?” She ran across the lab to feel up his brow. “You don’t have the plague again, do you? That would _suck_ , Tony. I did not like you having the plague.”

Tony gently removed Abby’s hand from his forehead. “I didn’t really like it either,” he reminded her, and then he looked at her and tried to think about making out with her. “Oh, hell,” he sighed. He couldn’t do it. Not Abby. It would kinda be like making out with your (admittedly hot) little sister.

“Tony?” Abby sounded as worried as Ducky had.

“I think I’m gay,” he blurted out, and then he stared down at her, aghast. Didn’t he use to have _some_ discretion? At least about _some_ things?

Oh wait. Maybe not.

Abby blinked. “Oh,” she said at last, “okay.” One of the large, noisy forensic machines beeped behind her, and she swung around. “Mass Spec!” she said happily and bounced back over. “I knew you’d come through for me!” She gave it a fond pat as she took the sample out and headed back to her computers.

“That’s it?” Tony was still standing by the large screen on the wall, currently depicting some crazy screensaver, all red and black splotches and smears. He didn’t know what else to do with himself. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Well…” Abby speedily typed some commands on the keyboard and then looked up again. She chewed on her lower lip as she studied him. “I always kinda assumed you swung both ways,” she said with a shrug.

“What?” It felt like his ears were full of wax again or something; like Saturday night, the words were _there_ but they just didn’t make any _sense_. “What?” he repeated and smacked the side of his head a couple times, lightly, just to find out if anything rattled.

“Look at the way you are around Gibbs,” she pointed out reasonably. She gave him a dubious, hopeful smile, then turned back to her computer monitor.

“What?” Tony looked around the lab blankly, then thought about Gibbs for a while. “Oh hell,” he said, and he found himself sliding—fairly gracefully, at least, this time—to the floor.

He sat down there for a while, not doing much of anything, including not thinking (it was probably the most relaxed he’d felt since Saturday, if only he bothered to notice), until he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to find Abby dangling Bert before him. He took the stuffed animal and gave it a hug. It farted. Loudly.

Abby sat down next to him, comfortably, and put her arm around his shoulders. “Tell Aunt Abby all about it,” she said.

He gave her a look, and she shrugged again. “It was the best I could come up with on short notice,” she told him and squeezed his shoulders. “Seriously, what happened?”

“You used to date McGee,” Tony said, “you must have thought he was hot.”

Abby blinked. “You like McGee?” she said.

“I didn’t think so,” he retorted, and squeezed Bert again. “And then I pretended to be Claire and it’s all gone to hell, Abby, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

Abby took her arm from around his shoulders so she could draw up her knees and hug them. Tony wished she’d left her arm where it was. It was comforting. He needed some comfort right now. His head hadn’t been this messed up since Jeanne left. ( _See?_ He kept repeating to himself, _you can’t be gay, you loved Jeanne. Yeah, but remember how you felt about your lieutenant in Baltimore?_ answered another part of his brain, and he knew it was bad when he argued with himself like this. _You’re not supposed to think about him when having sex with a woman you picked up at the bar. And even those women had thought that was some really great sex_. He just wished his head would stop spinning.)

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s start at the beginning. Have you ever liked a guy before?”

“Maybe?” Tony didn’t want to talk about it now. He didn’t want to think about it anymore. It was too confusing and it made his head hurt. “I’ve never done anything about it, though.”

“Whereas you obviously have with women,” Abby elbowed him, leering. Tony just looked at her. He had a feeling the look wasn’t as steely as it could have been because he was still clutching Bert the hippo like a six-year-old, but at least she stopped leering at him.

“So why are you asking this now?” she said, sobering. “What’s different about today?”

Tony let his head drop back against the wall. “What’s different about today,” he repeated, staring into empty space.

He wasn’t who he had been in high school, or college, or in Baltimore. He wasn’t who he had been before Jeanne. He’d barely had a date in mo—weeks, he still flirted with every attractive woman he met but half the time his heart wasn’t as in it as it used to be. It didn’t feel as—as important as it had, before Jeanne. And he’d spent a lot of time with McGee in the past few years. And Gibbs, for that matter. Oh crap. Now he was thinking about _Gibbs_ again. Why did Abby have to mention him?

“Maybe it’s not so much attraction as Stockholm Syndrome,” Tony said gloomily. Abby looked at him sideways.

“I think you know the difference between physical desire, Tony, and a psychological condition brought about by extreme situations,” she said dryly. She sat back herself, looking around apparently for inspiration. “Look at it this way,” she said. “Picture Ziva. Now picture her staying at my place overnight.”

Tony started grinning. He couldn’t help it.

Abby grinned back, not in the least offended. “Now think about when Gibbs tells you you’ve done a good job. Or some time when McGee was in trouble.” She held onto his gaze, even though he really wanted to look away at this point. “Think about last year, when Ziva shot that guy and took it really badly. When Director Shepherd died. Think about Jeanne.”

Tony looked away. He thought about giving the hippo another squeeze, but it just didn’t seem the right time.

“You love people, Tony,” Abby told him gently, and this time he really did hear her words. “Sometimes you’re kind of an ass, but you love people.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. He thought about Tom, football-playing Tom at Ohio State with his green eyes and dark hair and even greater ability to get in trouble than Tony; he thought about Gary the lieutenant who could look through Tony’s bullshit and shaped him into a good cop, good enough that Gibbs took him on and made him even better. And he thought about Jeanne, and Paula, and Amanda, and all the women with whom he’d had a really good time over the years.

Did they really all have to be mutually exclusive?

“So I’m not gay,” he said aloud, testing it out, “I’m bi.”

A peal of laughter rang out, and Abby gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Is there really anything wrong with that?” she asked.

Tony considered. “Would I get invited to more lesbian threesomes if I said I were?” he asked.

Abby hit him on the shoulder and took Bert back. “Shoo,” she said, jumping upright. “You still have work to do. And so do I.”

Tony looked up at her. She was right, of course; the world had never yet stopped just because he wanted a few days to figure out what the hell he’d done to his life this time. He stood up.

Abby poked him in the chest. “And Tim is _totally_ hot,” she added.

Tony started walking away but paused in the doorway to her lab. “If you tell anyone I said anything remotely like that,” he said, turning on his heel, “I will have to kill you, Abs.”

“No you won’t,” Abby didn’t turn away from her monitors.

Tony’s shoulders slumped. “No,” he said, “I won’t.”

Abby twisted her neck to look back. “Ask yourself this, Tony,” she said, in one of her rare moods of complete seriousness. “What do you want? And will you regret it if you don’t try to get it?”

Tony blinked. “I’m not…scared, Abby.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“It sounded like it.”

Abby smiled at him. “Really?”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “I’m just…confused.”

Abby’s smiled became even sunnier. “Confused is good,” she said. “You can almost always figure out _why_ you’re confused.”

He smiled back at her, slowly. You could almost always rely on Abby to make you feel at least a little bit better. “And once you figure out why, you can solve it?”

Abby turned back to her computers. “I knew you’d get there eventually.” She almost sounded proud.

*

Tony squared his shoulders as the elevator opened, adjusted his tie, and walked out into the office.

“Sorry I’m late, boss,” he started saying immediately as he strode for his desk, “had a flat tire, took forever to get it changed, you know what it’s like.” He dropped his gear, turned on his monitor, didn’t glance around. “Won’t happen again. Probably. For a while at least.”

He finally looked up, directly toward Gibbs’ desk. It took everything he had, but he did it, and Gibbs looked back at him steadily. Tony could see Tim, just out of the corner of his eye, diligently working at his computer. Probably catching up on old paperwork or something; good grief, did the guy have nothing better to do? Ziva was at her desk, too; Tony could just see her if he shifted his eyes the tiniest bit. And even though she was pretending to work, her fingers didn’t move over her keyboard.

“Make sure that it doesn’t,” Gibbs said, drawing Tony’s attention back, still giving him that even stare. The older man’s tone was surprisingly mild. _Terrifyingly_ so. Of course, he’d probably already known this was going to happen weeks ago. Tony could still only aspire to be that good.

Actually, right now, Tony was just trying not to think about making out with Gibbs.

“Sure thing, boss,” he managed to say and dropped into his chair. He was exhausted already and it was barely ten o’clock in the morning. He was so _screwed_.

*

 _Okay, DiNozzo. Okay. Think._

 _You’ve thought about this before. Of course you have; everyone has. When you hear about a beating on the news, when you flip to the wrong porn at three in the morning, when you’re lying in your bed alone at night and you keep thinking about your friend elsewhere in the frat house with his girlfriend…_

 _You’ve thought about this before._

 _Good for you. So what? The occasional thought, a passing glance, a possible_ idea _—that’s nothing. Action is what counts, and you’ve never—acted on any of those impulses._

 _Even if you’ve thought about it._

 _…And so what if you have? What’s really wrong with that? Why should it matter that you were interested in Amanda Reed, that maybe you were interested in Tom, or Gary, or sometimes guys you see at bars?_

 _Because you know other people will talk. You’ve always talked; you mock, you tease, you laugh. It’s what you’ve always done, it’s what is done, and you’ve never actually meant anything by it. You know that because every time you hear about a beating on the news, every time it comes up in a case at work, you always feel guilty._

 _…Yeah, okay, maybe you’ll stop._

 _So what does any of this have to do with you?_

 _I, Anthony DiNozzo, like women._

 _I also maybe like men._

 _Now what?_

*

“It’s actually quite attractive when a man is…open,” Ziva said suddenly sometime later that week. They’d been sitting quietly in the car, waiting for their mark to come out of his hotel to find out where he went.

Tony blinked, then swallowed. He let his gaze slide sideways to eye his partner. “Open?” he questioned in what he hoped was a warning tone of voice. It was one thing to talk to Ducky or Abby about what was currently going on in his head, another for Ziva to pre-emptively attack.

And boy could Ziva _attack_.

“Yes.” She sounded thoughtful, the way she did when describing how she would kill somebody slowly or painfully, or when reasoning how a perp orchestrated some particular piece of a crime. “I’m not really sure I can explain it, but many women find it very sexy when a man allows himself—not to be limited.”

Tony blinked some more. “I don’t know many women who find promiscuity and cheating very sexy,” he said at last and with great caution.

“True,” Ziva conceded. “We usually prefer serial monogamy at least.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. He turned in the driver’s seat—a hard-fought-for position, but he was in no mood to handle Ziva’s driving—so he was more fully facing her. “What are you trying to say, _Ziva_?”

She turned her head a little to smile at him. It was her particularly _enigmatic_ smile. “You should be more…open, Tony. I think it would suit you.”

It was about then their suspect left the hotel, so Tony thankfully didn’t have to answer.

*

Tony glared.

The car was oppressive with the silence and Tony’s glare. _Car_. It was always cars. Tony was about ready to give up on automobiles altogether and _walk_.

“I’m sorry, okay?” McGee burst out at last. “I had _no intention_ of tripping you into the creek, Tony. I’m sure you realize that. How many times do I have to tell you I’m sorry?”

“Let’s try another five hundred times,” Tony said and shifted position in the passenger seat. He squelched accusingly. “And see how far that gets you.”

Tim blew out a breath through his nose. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. It was probably the first time he’d gotten to drive in—a while. He didn’t look like he was enjoying it all that much.

Ha, Tony thought vindictively. It was the most—the most _normal_ he’d felt all week, not strained or, or _confused_ or strangely excited. Like when he started his first day as a cop, or when he realized how much he cared about Jeanne, or when he took off a restrictive suit jacket after wearing it for twenty-four hours straight, a combination of _release_ and something more secretive and risky. That was how he’d felt all week, and it was unsettling, and he just wanted normal now, thanks (never mind that he hadn’t seen this side of normal since probably before he started at NCIS). And while it apparently took McKlutz tossing him in the creek to get there, at least he was there again.

It had all been too much thinking. Tony didn’t do this much thinking. It gave him frown lines. Yeah, that’s right, frown lines.

And then he thought about slapping McGee on the ass instead of the head and started the baleful glaring again.

*

“DiNozzo,” Gibbs snapped, pushing himself away from his desk and striding toward the elevator, “with me.”

Tony glared around at Ziva and McGee and followed his fearless leader into the elevator. Gibbs pressed the button, waited a nanosecond, then stopped the car.

Tony never got the elevator. He always got the stairwell. He wasn’t sure he liked getting the elevator. Being alone in close proximity to Gibbs in a darkened enclosed space when he was pissed was kinda terrifying.

“Get your head out of your ass and _focus_ ,” Gibbs said, staring straight ahead.

“I _am_ focused,” Tony said through gritted teeth. “Boss.”

“Then _act_ like it.” Gibbs finally turned his glare full on Tony and pressed a hand against Tony’s chest, shoving him back into the wall. “I need your undivided attention, Tony, if we’re going to solve this case. Is that clear?”

“Yessir.”

 _Fuck_ , Tony thought to himself as he straightened and faced forward again. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_. He _hadn’t_ been focusing entirely on the case. He’d been thinking about mocking McGee, and then making out with him. Which was as far as his fantasies had gotten (okay, maybe the occasional handjob thrown in), but he didn’t think they were going to stop there. And while he was getting increasingly okay with that thought, it still meant his whole head wasn’t in the game.

“Won’t happen again, boss,” he said softly as Gibbs punched the emergency button again, releasing the elevator from its suspension. They started going down again. “Probably.”

Gibbs gave him another look. “For a while at least?” The doors dinged open by Ducky’s morgue. Gibbs smacked him upside the head—but lightly. Tony smiled at him briefly. Gibbs nodded and stepped out. “Take McGee and talk to the family,” he said before the elevator doors could shut. “Don’t mess it up.”

Tony rode the elevator back up alone. “Huh,” he said aloud. From Gibbs, that had almost been _encouragement_.

*

 _Okay. Okay. Think, DiNozzo,_ think! _You’ve gotta…clear the confusion._

 _So maybe you’re a little more—flexible—about who you find attractive than you always let yourself think. So what next? What does that even_ mean? _Where do you go from here? Do you throw Tim against a wall and see if he punches you if you try to kiss him? Do you pretend to be another girl online to flirt with him?_

 _That would be a definite no._

 _Throwing him against a wall, though…that has potential._

 _Why are you even thinking about this? What the hell does McGoogle do for you that other people—not even other men, since you never even let yourself think like this before—don’t?_

 _He’s smart. (You don’t normally admit it, but that is a turn-on.) He’s passionate about everything he does from gaming to writing to work. He’s…nice. Ridiculously nice; nobody else would have treated that room full of women prisoners holding him hostage as courteously as he no doubt did, and you just constantly want to noogie him for it. But he’s also got your back. And he’s grown a helluva lot since you met him, when he was so green he stepped in the poison ivy, or so completely shaken when he killed that crooked cop. He’s one of the best friends you have these days. You piss him off, he still hates being called probie, but he gives as good as he gets, and not everyone gets you the way he does. And he is so not your type, but, okay, maybe he is kinda hot._

 _So answer this: what do you want? And will you regret it if you don’t try?_

 _Oh hell. Now what?_

*

It was after midnight on Friday this time, but it was still only Tony and McGruber. (He was waiting for the opportunity to use McFancyPants on Tim. That probably said something about him too, but really, Tony was kinda tired by this point about analyzing his own head.) They sat at their respective desks, typing merrily away—okay, maybe McGee was typing merrily away; Tony was just typing, or rather plucking at the keys. Waiting.

McGee powered down his computer and started packing up his gear. “Good night, Tony,” he said, “have a good weekend.” He started heading for the elevator.

“McGee, wait.”

It had been a hellish week, but not as hellish as Tony had expected. They’d all gotten on with the job—it was always a bit easier when there was something pressing and crazy dangerous and _now_ to deal with, making any personal thoughts and feelings take a back seat (or at least _mostly_ take a back seat); but that didn’t mean those personal thoughts and feelings disappeared, it just meant they sorted themselves out for the most part while you were busy dodging bullets and praying you wouldn’t die in a fiery blaze because Gibbs was driving in a hurry.

So Tony had been a little quieter than usual, and Ziva’s playful teasing had taken a—different turn, and Abby had surreptitiously stuck Bert in his bottom desk drawer for comfort whenever he needed it, and Ducky had kept shaking his head at him fondly like an exasperated parental figure (which, actually, DiNozzo’s dad had _never_ done; or at least, the head-shaking had never seemed particularly _fond_ ), and Gibbs had kept just giving him that steady, steady stare, forcing him to think and be honest with himself the way that steady stare always did. And Tim…well, Probie was Probie.

“Yeah, Tony?” McGee had turned around, hovering by the edge of Ziva’s desk. He still stood there, patient, expectant.

“About what you said last week.” Tony stood up, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to walk around his desk.

Even from the distance, and in the dimmed light, he could see the other man stiffen a little. “Yeah?” Tim met his gaze—squarely, like it was the hardest thing he’d done all week, and Tony had seen him do some pretty hard things this week.

Tony tried out a grin, one of his I’m-so-cool-you-gotta-love-me grins, or maybe it was actually one of his sheepish-no-really-I’m-a-good-guy grins. He hoped it was one of those, at least, and not just the nervous one. The nervous one was not nearly as sexy. “So, you wanna have sex with me?”

McGee blinked. Tony tried to hold onto the grin, but he could feel it fading, feel his lips sliding back down as he watched, and waited.

“Tony, I—” McGee took a step toward him and then stopped, clearly at a loss. “I was joking.”

“Joking, huh.”

“Well, no, not _joking_ exactly, but—I was just trying to make the point. You know.” McGee looked at him doubtfully. “Considering the way you’ve been acting this week, I thought you got it, but now…”

“Now?”

Tim’s face hardened. “Quit messing around, DiNozzo.”

“Who says I’m messing around?” Tony didn’t even try for a playful tone, just kept it flat and even. He kept watching the other man, trying to figure out his cues. This wasn’t playing out the way he’d expected; but then, he’d had no clue what to expect. He’d just known he had to do this. Tony was not the man to let things remain left unsaid. Or untried.

“Aren’t you? You don’t—you’re not—you like _women_.”

“So do you,” Tony countered.

“Yeah, and,” McGee stopped.

“Yeah, and?” Tony mimicked him, mostly because he knew that annoyed the probie and he wanted to provoke a reaction.

“And I like men too,” Timothy declared, and he tried to stare the other man down, but Tony was too busy feeling relieved. He had been known to misread a situation, but he was hoping he hadn’t misread this one. And now he was pretty sure he hadn’t.

“Apparently,” Tony grinned at him, “so do I.”

There was a long pause. Tim was staring at him. Tony started staring down at his desk because he couldn’t take all the staring anymore.

“Did you just figure this out?” McGee sounded confused.

“Um.” Tony looked around the office and finally forced himself to meet the other man’s eye. “Yeah. Kinda. I had a good long talk with Abby. And Ziva. They opened my eyes to the ways of the world. Consider me open.” He winced. “Okay, that probably could have come out better.”

McGeek looked like he was in pain, and really, Tony kinda couldn’t blame him. “I’m not going to have sex with you, Tony. Or do anything else with you.”

Tony wasn’t about to take that as a final answer. “What, not even work a stakeout? Eat Chinese food at two in the morning because that’s the only place open that’ll deliver? Let me crash at your place when my apartment gets firebombed?”

“Firebombed?!” Tim looked horrified.

“Okay, so that hasn’t happened yet, but you’ve gotta admit, my track record isn’t the greatest.” Tony finally found the courage to walk around his desk and approach McGee. And he didn’t move, just watched Tony approach—granted, he looked more apprehensive than, say, aroused, or even curious, but what the hell, Tony would take what he could get. “You’re not going to do any of that?”

“Of course I am, Tony, you know that isn’t what I meant.” Tim sighed in exasperation. “I meant—we work together. We’re a team. You don’t—you don’t make out with your co-workers.”

“You dated Abby,” Tony countered.

“That was different, and you know it,” Tim sounded stern the way only he could, and Tony couldn’t help grinning, even if he was wondering when the hell he’d started feeling _affection_ for some of Tim’s more annoying personal traits. Really, he probably should have gotten a clue about his feelings a lot sooner than this.

He walked right up to Tim, stood right in his space. McGee didn’t move. It was suddenly very quiet in the office.

Tony ducked in to say into Tim’s ear, “Different. Right.”

He could hear Tim swallow.

“It actually kinda makes sense,” Tony said, keeping it conversational. He stepped back enough that he could look McGee in the eye, but he was still in Tim’s space, could kiss him right now if he wanted to, and the fact that he wanted to made him feel a little terrified and a little elated. “I mean, I like sex. I _really_ like sex. Why limit myself? And Abby, she was right—I love people.”

“You do?” Tim sounded acerbic.

Tony gave him a steady look (yeah, it was one he’d learned from Gibbs; but hey, learn from the best). “I do.”

Tim’s eyes narrowed as he looked back at DiNozzo. “Does that mean you’re attracted to me?”

Tony winced theatrically. “Oh, come _on_ , man,” he said. “Are you going to make me say it?”

“Yes.” McGee looked pretty relentless, too.

Tony took a deep breath, looking away for a moment. He could feel McGee stiffening again, closing down, ready to turn and walk away. He looked up and met Tim’s gaze before the other man could move. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I think you’re attractive.”

McGee’s eyes widened a little. He blinked a couple times, nodded. Set down his backpack on the ground, carefully. Straightened. He didn’t back away, use the maneuver to give himself more space. Tony could feel his heart beating faster again. “I…did not expect that,” Tim said. It sounded like he didn’t quite know what he was doing either. It made feel Tony feel a little better.

“Honestly? Me neither,” Tony confessed. “I think you’re obligated at _least_ to make out with me now. I deserve something after all the mental confusion.”

“Please,” Tim scoffed. “We’re not in high school, Tony.”

“Obviously not,” Tony replied, “you and I would never have been having this conversation in high school. My coolness factor would have dropped into the negative digits if I’d been seen with you.”

“And my friends would have hacked into my computer and turned all my math homework into porn,” Tim countered.

There was a pause. “Huh,” Tony said. “That’s actually kinda cool.”

McGee’s lips twitched, and—despite himself—he started grinning. Tony grinned back, somewhere between relief and playfulness. They both laughed.

 _Holy crap_ , Tony thought to himself with giddying clarity, _I am flirting with my male co-worker_.

It was a liberating thought, stemming from the same liberating feeling he’d been feeling building up all week, and that more than anything—more than Abby’s cheerful sangfroid and Ducky’s helpless bemusement and Ziva’s enigmatic encouragement and Gibbs’ weird unspoken understanding—was what had led him to risk this move tonight.

That, and the thought that he would regret it if he didn’t try.

“We,” Tony said, “are still at work. The security cameras are still running. There are probably other employees around.”

“Director Vance hasn’t left yet,” McGee interjected.

Tony shuddered. “It is definitely time we took this conversation elsewhere,” he decided.

“Conversation?” Tim raised an eyebrow.

“Hey, I can take it slow,” Tony sounded comfortable. He still didn’t quite know what he was doing, but he was closer to a place and situation he recognized, and Anthony DiNozzo was a man who could improvise in all kinds of situations. He whipped back around his desk to power down his computer and grab his stuff. McGee picked up his backpack again and continued to hover by Ziva’s desk area, awkwardly waiting. And—and yeah. Even when Tony was being a complete _ass_ (he did not hear Abby’s voice when he thought that), Tim was still usually pretty willing to follow his lead.

“Tony, this is—you know this is crazy, right?”

Tony slung his own backpack over his shoulder and strode back around his desk, heading for the elevator without pausing. McGee jogged to catch up with him.

“Crazier than pretending to be a hot gaming chick so I could flirt with you without fear of repercussions even from my own psyche?” Tony asked as they stepped into the elevator.

Tim blinked. “Um,” he said, “okay, you have a point.”

“C’mon, McGeek.” Tony slapped Tim on his back and then left his arm hanging around Tim’s shoulders as they rode down. “I might not have a lot of tats like Abby, but I think I can still show you a good time.”


End file.
